Talent and HR News Update: Work/Life Balance

As a company made up primarily of women who work from home, flexible working policies are central to how we operate. It is crucial that we all set parameters to keep our work and personal lives in harmony so that we are better able to be productive employees. This month's update focuses on finding this work/life balance in each of your own lives.

Fairygodboss, a marketplace where professional women looking for jobs, advice, and the inside scoop on companies meet employers who believe in gender equality, launched its Work-Life Balance Guide today. The crowdsourced database aims to help women find employers who offer the flexible working policies, and jobs they're interested in – even from companies who don't openly share that information.

The Work-Life Balance Guide will allow women to search specific companies or industries to see which employers offer part-time, telecommuting jobs or flexible working policies. Additional insights such as compressed workweeks, allowances for some work-from-home days, or flexible workday start and end times will also be easily searchable in the database.

Whenever I say that I’m working as a freelancer writer, people around me believe that working from home is easy. That it takes less effort than a regular full-time job and gives you more time to live your life. There are some definite benefits such as working whenever I want and having a flexible schedule. BUT…the truth about working from home is far from what people believe.

If you’re a professional who chose to go on this path, you likely have already realized that distractions and life often stand in your way. So what’s the solution? Simple: find and cultivate a work-life balance system that works best for you. It must suit your lifestyle and yours only. In order to find this balance, you must go through a trial-and-error process. This process consists of failing, getting back up, failing again, getting back up again, and eventually succeeding.

Here are five effective insights that should help you create a better work-life balance while working from home.

I’ve written before about how important it is to find work that is enjoying and fulfilling. Staying at a job you hate has major negative consequences. Just as important, though, is striking the right work life balance. Even those of us who love our jobs can easily burn out if we overdo it.

My client, Mike, was experiencing burnout in a job he absolutely loved and had no idea how or why he had reached that point since he genuinely enjoyed what he did for a living. It was hard for him to see from his perspective, but I could see from a mile away that he had really overdone it at work, despite how much he loved what he was doing.

Here are five tips to make sure you keep your work-life balance in check.

Ann Jagger's digital printing company has benefited from her wealth of business experience as well as some new perspective from her young staffers.

Editor's note: People over 50 are among the country's most active entrepreneurs, starting businesses at rates higher than their young counterparts. In this series, Inc. profiles the new wave of Boomer founders.

When Ann Jagger launched Southport Graphics in 2009, she was determined not to kill herself doing it. A serial entrepreneur, she knew the expectations. Long hours. Zero personal life. "When we started this business I told [my partners] I am not going to do what I did in my 20s and 30s," says Jagger, who is now 59. "I am not going to pull all-nighters, working for seven months straight without a day off. I will work anywhere from 35 to 40 hours a week."

Her resolve about work-life balance hasn't hurt growth. Southport, a digital printing business based in Cary, North Carolina, is Jagger's largest business to date, with 10 employees and roughly $2 million in annual revenue.

Starting and running your own business is a massive undertaking for any person, no matter how talented or hard working you are. It requires risk, sacrifice, unwavering determination, long days, sleepless nights, and most of all, faith. For women, entrepreneurial success often comes at the expense of any normal functionality in our personal lives. Sometimes we don’t even have a personal life.

I can certainly attest to that. As a married mother of two, I often reflect on when I started my first company several years ago. I remember the days when I was so busy trying to make sure my business was functioning properly and my kids were not neglected, that I neglected my husband. Many nights I would lie in bed beside him and instantly fall asleep.

Do you have news or insight about employer branding, talent or culture to share? Want us to include it in our monthly update? Contact us below.

Shannon Smedstad (@shannonsmedstad) is a Principal Employer Brand Strategist for exaqueo, an employer brand experience firm building employer brands and the talent strategies that drive them through research, consulting and creative and digital execution. Contact exaqueo to learn more about our employer brand innovation, workforce research and recruiting strategy offerings.